The Ghost Of You
by YamiPaladinofChaos
Summary: [Kakashi x Rin] It's the End of the World, but Kakashi's still alive, as always.


**_Disclaimer: _**I don't own Naruto.

The sun was barely rising, blearily sending indigo-royal purple through the night sky, clashing and forming a sort of twilight moment.

Rin frowned as she kicked dirt up in a childish manner, unsure and fiddling with the hem of her chuunin vest nervously. Her other hand is moving a swath through her hair, fingering an errant strand and twisting and braiding it, before releasing it and moving towards another.

She doesn't know how to say what she needs to say, and is in fact very uncomfortable with saying anything at all.

"I know you love me." She blurts out, hoping to get on with it. "But... but I can't... I can't..." she can't seem to form the words, and chokes. "I don't want to wait... I'm sorry."

She releases the hem of her vest and looks straight at the name on the stone. "I love Kakashi... I really wish I didn't, sometimes, but I do." Her voice rings clear and proud, unforgiven but forgiveness isn't really something she wants right about now.

The memorial stone does not mock her, but nor does it offer her any comfort.

---

Kakashi, by chance, sleeps with Obito's eye open at all times. Unblinkingly, it remains open and alert, staring blankly at anything and everything in the world, seeing beyond, its wheels spinning endlessly.

Its one reason that he hasn't slept in the same bed as a woman he's fucked since Obito died. No one in their right mind wants a blood red Sharingan staring you in the face as you sleep, as you wake.

They never really thought about how he felt, every time he stared into a mirror, and letting Obito stare back at him.

Its one reason why he doesn't own a mirror, and hates looking at his reflection.

So as he steps by the mirror-less bathroom sink, he stepped into the shower. There is still flecks of blood from his last mission, spattered about his hands and chest. His enemy's screams that echo in his ears is drowned out by the dull roar of water.

He lets the blood taint the water to a dull crimson as it washes down the drain, and, as if captivated, watches it swirl away.

Obito's eye flinches as water runs down into it, and Kakashi shakes his head and wipes at it angrily, as if flinging away tears.

A bit of blood-water runs down his hand as he does this, smearing it across his face, water still streaming down.

The Sharingan is crying blood at that moment, and once again, Kakashi is glad he doesn't have a mirror.

---

Rin walks by the Yamanka's flower shop ever day, just looking, never buying, on her way to her usual tea shop.

The blonde woman at the counter gives her a friendly smile, and she returns it as honestly as she can.

There is a lovely, proud and unbowed white rose are surrounded by thorny, vicious black roses, all of them blooming in full.

It strikes her as sadly, poetically fitting, and then she arrives at the tea shop.

After ordering her usual, slightly bittersweet tea and a cake, she sits down, sipping it lightly and indulging in a novel she picked up the other day.

The page she opens to has the protagonist crying amidst the bodies of her slain clan, weeping without comfort, torn by the past and unable to find a future among blood and corpses.

Her lover has gone off to fight a desperate war, is too driven by thoughts of avenging their friend, too drunk on the idea of atonement to notice how much his love misses him, cares for him.

The woman, desperate for him, runs off to the battlefield where he's fighting, despite the fact that she's nowhere near as strong. And in the end, the monstrous foe slays the man, and the woman is left all alone again.

The cake feels too sweet in her mouth and Rin nearly chokes on it. Drinking down the now bitter tea, she sets the novel down with an almost spiteful glare.

"Story's too damn sad." She mutters, and lets the too sweet cake lie there and she drinks down the bitterness of the tea.

Rin leaves the book behind that day, and doesn't think twice about it.

---

If there is a Hell, Kakashi decides, this is how it smells.

No fire and brimstone and sulfur and the screams of the damned, but cigarette smoke, alcohol, lust and sin fill the air like a choking miasma.

Obito's eye stings from the smoke, but Kakashi ignores the pain.

He's used to it.

There's a busty, raven haired woman who's shooting him looks that are not so much inviting as they are sickeningly lustful. Kakashi's sure he can lose himself in her for a little while; she's bound to be a good enough fuck for a one night stand.

He shoots her a lazy, one eyed glare that sends her melting into puddles, and, much to his own disgusted amusement, he's almost proud of how easily he could get that woman to submit to his desires.

The alcohol (frankly, he doesn't give a shit what he ordered, as long as it makes him _forget_) is already starting to dull his senses, but he can still sense it when she arrives.

He always can.

Standing in the bar smoke and dim amber light, Rin is Heaven's angel sent to retrieve a fallen sinner.

He wishes Obito could be sitting next to him, just so that he could hear her ream them out and drag them back, drunk as the next couple of guys.

Instead he doesn't have a drinking partner and instead has two mismatched eyes, one of which is a gift curse, and a name etched in stone.

"You've had enough." She says quietly, tugging on his arm.

"Yeah." Kakashi agrees quietly, taking in the last vestiges of his drink that slither down his throat like bitter ambrosia. "I have."

---

Kakashi is bleeding and hanging on a thread as he staggers away, blindly through the streets of the Hidden Leaf. He's like a straw man, straws falling out of his hollow body as the rain pounds down unforgivingly.

Though his mind is blank, his feet know the way.

When he knocks on her door, she's not surprised, nor even the least bit frightened that a man with a bleeding face and rain soaked hair is standing on her doorway.

"Do you want to come in?" Rin asks quietly, but doesn't move from the doorway, sensing that he's waiting for something.

What he's waiting for, she doesn't know, because the next thing she knows, she's being pushed up against the wall of her own apartment, Kakashi's hands running across her body as his lips bury themselves against her neck.

"I need healing." The Copy Ninja requests softly, into her ear as his hands wander down the small of her back.

Rin smiles at him, gentle despite his yearning hands. She accepts with soft, warm lips.

---

Rin, Kakashi finds out, is very possessive. He knows now because she's grabbing him for dear life when he stands, trying to leave.

"This wasn't a pity fuck." He assures her softly, gently stroking her hair.

"I know." Of course. She always knows what's on his mind. "Stay?"

"You don't mind?" he asks quietly, and Obito is staring at her with his spinning Sharingan.

Rin shakes her head, smiling gently as she pressed herself against him, her lips like a gentle inoculation against the world. "It's comforting to know you're always watching."

Kakashi doesn't argue, and buries himself in her arms like he's going to his grave.

---

If this is the End of the World, Kakashi decides, he prefers to die here, in her arms.

She's bleeding, he's bleeding, they're mixing together in the unity of blood, under the watchful gaze of Obito.

Somewhere else, the Kyubi no Youma is roaring its hateful force, annihilating with all the fury and wrath of the Devil.

Somewhere else, his sensei is fighting his damndest to keep the Hidden Leaf from falling apart and resisting a creature whose strength rivals that of the gods.

Rin is holding him like an angel, pulling him away. Her hands are moving in a medical jutsu.

He's lying in wait for Obito to greet him at the gates, and the Copy Ninja tries to stop her, coughing up his blood painfully.

If they died, he knows, they'd be together.

"Not yet." Rin whispers softly, pushing aside stands of his matted, blood soaked hair. "You can't die just yet."

He wants to plead with her, to spare him the agony of living one more minute, to finally let his ghosts catch him.

But Rin smiles, and he lives again.

---

He's out of the hospital and frowns as he opens the fridge, letting the cold blast his face. Almost angrily he grabs the milk, which is probably just on the verge of going bad because of how long it's been since he's stocked his supplies.

He downs it all, and wishes it were alcohol, but unfortunately most of that is already gone.

Obito's eye is free because of bandages wrapped around his face that make it too difficult to keep a mask on. It stares out, into the future.

He's living for three- no, four people now, living because those people are dead and he's still alive, because he's Kakashi and he doesn't die, no one _lets _him die.

"Fuck you all." He mutters, and hurls the glass down, shattering it against the floor with contempt.

"IT'S TOO HEAVY YOU BASTARDS!" he screams, the words tearing out of his throat and he's tired, so tired after that outburst he understands he'll never scream at the dead again.

The ghosts are beckoning him to sleep, just out of his reach.

The Sharingan still doesn't close.


End file.
